the.com/apnea
The body hitting pause on breathing, hoping nobody notices.
means A temporary stopping of breathing, whether from sleep, a medical condition, or holding your breath on purpose.
from From Greek 'apnoia,' built from 'a-' (without) and 'pnein' (to breathe) — the same 'pnein' that gives us 'pneumonia' and 'pneumatic.' It passed through Latin into English in the medical literature, a clinical borrowing for a very old, very basic act the body sometimes refuses to do.
- literal meaning
- Greek for without breath
- sleep version
- throat collapses, brain reboots you hundreds of times nightly
- silent damage
- you wake up tired, never remembering the gasping
- fun fact
- newborns do it normally; adults do it worryingly